A Perfect Machine
by smashing
Summary: An AU story... circumstances are the same, but all the main characters have something extra... Mr. Todd has multiple personalities, for example. How will the plot change as a result? Will be Todd/Lovett
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Behold my new project! If people generally like it, this will be the first chapter of a long story. It's AU, and basically a retelling of the Sweeney Todd story but with some alterations. I'm definitely setting a challenge for myself here- the whole project is rather ambitious in terms of both the characterizations and the planned length, so pleasepleaseplease make sure to review!

The title is a lyric snippet from 'The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.' I guess it's meant to be ironic since the story is basically an exploration of the ways in which Sweeney- and the other characters- are imperfect and human.

-/-/-/-

London! In the months that he had been on the ship, Benjamin Barker had almost come to believe that the earth was nothing more than an enormous black ocean, cold waters heaving and extending in all directions. But now there it was, the distant silhouette indicating that they had reached their destination at last. The monstrous skyline of the great city had sprouted suddenly at the horizon, looking for all the world like a row of jagged teeth.

The sailor, Anthony, had noticed it as well. He began babbling excitedly. "Oh, look, Mr. Todd! There it is! The greatest city in the world!"

_That boy is a fool if I ever saw one. _Benjamin felt the words brush the back of his mind like icy fingertips.

He frowned at that, for the thought was an unkind one. The lad reminded him of himself, in many ways. He rather envied him his youthful ignorance. With a sigh, Benjamin returned his attention the familiar outlines of the city he had once called home. He tasted vinegar as a pang of bitterness stabbed through his gut. Everything; that pit of depravity had stolen everything. Still, his hostility was softened by thoughts of the family that awaited him. Nestled somewhere among the filth and corruption were his wife and child... Johanna would be a young woman now, he reflected sadly. And Lucy--

He became aware that he had been speaking this entire time.

"...the most extraordinary levels of malice and debauchery. I, too, have seen something of the world, and men are maggots wherever you go. But London- ah! There is no place like London..."

The naive enthusiasm had melted from the young sailor's face, to be replaced by anxiety and doubt. Benjamin felt a spasm of guilt. "I beg your indulgence, Anthony," he said apologetically. "My mind is far from me today."

_The boy has to learn sometime. _There it was again. The throaty, serrated whisper of the voice that called itself Sweeney Todd. On the whole, Benjamin thought it wise to follow its advice; it had helped him to engineer his escape, after all. Past experience notwithstanding, however, that voice never failed to send chills down his spine. Perhaps it was because its dry, rasping quality conjured up images of the desert, and awakened memories he would rather forget...

_The Australian sun glared down upon him like an angry red eye. The other men had watched him drop without sparing him a second glance; the finer human emotions of pity and compassion could not long survive in this merciless climate. Every day men fell and never got up, dying quiet, dry deaths under the sun's cruel gaze. Ben himself had looked on impassively as his companions writhed in the sand, begging for a final sip of water. Now that it was him on the ground, he hardly expected any more sympathy._

_"So I am to die," he said evenly, to no one in particular. He felt eerily calm about it. After experiencing what torments man inflicted upon man, what fear could death hold for him?_

_He wanted to drift away, to sleep and sleep and sleep, but the prospect of death seemed to snap his mind to acute, painful consciousness. His vision seemed sharper, clearer now. He watched an ant scuttle by the bridge of his nose. Perhaps when he was dead, the ant would signal his fellows and they would devour him. He pictured himself, a glistening writhing mass of tiny black bodies. One by one, the creatures would scatter, until nothing remained but smooth, dry bone, barren and pristinely white. The idea was oddly comforting._

_His eyes roved upwards; the sky above him was pitilessly blue. Blue like the sea... was he underwater? Perhaps that was why his sight was so hazy, why everything seemed to shimmer before his eyes. But then why was he so very thirsty?_

_He turned his gaze away from the blue water-sky. It confused him. He focused, instead, on the rich bright yellow of the sand. Yellow, yellow. Lucy's hair was yellow. Oh yes, he remembered her. He wasn't even sure who he was himself. But forget Lucy? Never. "Lucy," he murmured, "My angel, my darling..." Benjamin had long ago lost faith in a benevolent power, but all the same he offered up a desperate prayer. Please let her be happy. Please don't let the Judge... Ah, the Judge. He remembered him, too._

_The bile rose at the back of his throat. He pictured it for what must have been the thousandth time, the hundred-thousandth time: his razor kissing the Judge's bare throat, the blood spilling sweetly forth like the most beautiful of fountains. He closed his eyes and smiled. It would be a pleasant image to die to._

Dead men cannot take revenge.

_Oh, he knew he was dying now, for though he was certainly alone he thought he had heard a voice, sibilant as a snake's and cold as a metal blade._

Yes. We are dying. But it is not too late... only gather the strength to live another day, and I can help you. We can escape. We can make the Judge pay.

_A noise that might have been a laugh issued from Ben's parched throat. "And who are you exactly?" A pause. His vision swam. "Who am I?"_

We are Sweeney Todd.

"Mr. Todd?" Anthony was peering at him curiously. The scorching sun vanished, and Ben shivered to find himself standing on the squalid streets of London. The boy's proffered hand dangled in his face. Vaguely, Ben shook it, his thoughts still far away. With an effort he came back to himself long enough to deliver a wan smile.

"If ever you need anything, you might find me on Fleet Street," he said generously.

The sailor's face flushed with gratitude. "I hope we meet again, Mr. Todd!"

_We won't._

_"_He saved our life," thought Ben, watching with concern as the youth strode confidently into the polluted heart of the metropolis. "We owe him at least for that." He didn't know at what point he had slipped into Todd's habit of referring to himself in the plural.

_Innocence like his cannot long survive. Before he has spent a week in this city, that boy will have grown wiser, or he will be dead. Either way, he will not need our help._

Benjamin Barker didn't bother arguing. He had more important things to attend to.

-/-/-/-

End of chapter one... don't forget to review! I bake your reviews into delicious meat pies and feed them to my story, so without them the poor thing will just wither away.

Also, be aware that I am in school and have exams coming up soon, so updates may not be as frequent as you or I would like. I'm thinking a chapter a week is a reasonable goal, but we'll see.


	2. Chapter 2

She still rose at the same hour every morning, still rolled the dough and made the pies fresh each day. Never mind that it had been weeks since she last had a customer. Grind the meat (what little there was), roll the crust, bake the pies. Repeat. This was her routine, and routine was a comfort to a woman living alone.

Well, not entirely alone. There were always the ghosts.

Mrs. Lovett had heard the talk, the tales whispered in hushed tones along Fleet Street and throughout London. People gave earnest accounts of screams heard in the dead of night, of bloodied razor-blades and weeping banshee women with yellow hair. The sad story of the barber's wife and the judge who desired her had been distorted over the years, romanticized and embellished to the point where it was nearly unrecognizable. But the one detail everyone agreed on was that the spare room above the meat pie emporium on Fleet Street was undoubtedly haunted. What Mrs. Lovett had never told anyone was that the rumors were absolutely true. The room _was _haunted.

Haunted, specifically, by the specters of Benjamin and Lucy Barker. Mrs. Lovett supposed that they couldn't be ghosts, technically, because as far as she knew both of those poor souls were still alive. But Mrs. Lovett was never one to trouble herself with technicalities. Ghosts, shadows, memories- whatever they were, the fact was that they were _there_, plain as anything, exactly as they had been on that long-ago day when everything had gone so wrong. He, beautiful as always, in a brown suit and a newly pressed shirt; she in a blue crinoline frock, a summery bonnet in her hair.

Sometimes she spoke to them, when she was feeling especially bored or lonely. She would tell them whatever was on her mind, ask their opinions on the price of meat these days or whether they thought she could put off the washing for another week. They never replied, of course, only stared at her in a mournful sort of way. They were sad, silent things, her ghosts.

She didn't mind them terribly. They were some company, at least. And with dear Albert dead, and business bad as it was, and all the neighbors thinking her quite mad, Mrs. Lovett figured she could use a little company.

-/-/-/-

When Benjamin Barker first opened the door, he thought the woman standing there was a ghost herself. She was pale, pale as the flour on her dress, as if she hadn't seen sunlight in fifteen years. She was quite pretty, he conceded; Nellie Lovett had always been pretty. Still, her eyes were sunken and shadowed and her slender form bordered on the skeletal. It was obvious the woman hadn't eaten enough in ages, nor slept, for that matter. He peered at her more closely, searching for the plump, jovial young woman he had known in _those _days. She was there, but only a shadow of her. Her coppery hair seemed to be the only thing about her that hadn't faded.

Sweeney Todd, for his part, was not particularly interested in this woman or her troubles. If anything, he was wary of her. He sensed that this tangible connection to the past might distract them from their ultimate goal. Ben felt hostility and suspicion that were not his own rising in his chest like a clenched fist. Vengeance was paramount; why else had they escaped one hellish prison only to sail into the arms of another, if not for revenge? It wouldn't do for their mind to stray from that. Not at all.

Nevertheless, Benjamin surveyed her with concern in his eyes. "Ah, Eleanor," he sighed inwardly. "What has this world done to you?"

_That's what a lifetime in London will do. I doubt if there ever were a town more poisonous to its inhabitants._

For once, they were in perfect agreement.

-/-/-/-

She knew who he was almost as soon as he entered her shop. True, his face was gaunt, his complexion wan and unhealthy. The years had taken their toll on him, sure enough, and she supposed that to a less practiced eye he would appear a very different man. But to she who had memorized its every feature, who had traced its contours with her eyes heaven only knew how often, the face was instantly recognizable.

Benjamin Barker. The barber who had rented the upstairs room all those years ago, whose imprint lingered there even now. She remembered he had been sweet and soft-spoken, a courteous neighbor who was always quick with a smile. He doted on that bride of his and their blond-haired brat, and Mrs. Lovett only admired him all the more for his indulgence. It was further proof of his mild, generous nature. But they had sent him away years ago, on some ludicrous charge concocted by that judge who had so coveted his wife.

Yet here he stood. After the initial shock at seeing this newest ghost, this one flesh and blood, the corners of Mrs. Lovett's mouth twitched upward in a small smile. She knew it. _She knew it_. While that silly, histrionic Lucy had wailed and poisoned herself in despair, she, Nellie Lovett, had waited. She had known all along that that foppish lout in a powdered wig could not have got rid of Benjamin- her Benjamin- so easily. And now, _now _her patience had paid off, he had finally returned, and she would be the one to welcome him.

_You've come home! _She could have rushed the man and embraced him on the spot. But something about the way his soft brown eyes had grown cold, about how very tightly he knit that dark, inscrutable brow, warned her that Mr. Barker was not in the mood for friendly reminiscing. Better to wait for him to introduce himself, to reveal his purpose in coming here on his own. In the meantime, though, the poor man looked like famine itself. Bloke probably hadn't seen a decent meal in years.

"Have you come in for a pie, sir?" she inquired brightly, dusting one of the unpleasant-looking pastries off and presenting it to him with a flourish. Her mouth twisted wryly. "These, sir," she declared with mock solemnity, "Are the worst pies in London!"

-/-/-/-

(A/N: Yay for lengthy, action-free character development... so apparently Mrs. Lovett sees things that aren't there. As you can see, in this fic ALL the main characters get to enjoy the fun of insanity. Whee!

Sorry this story is moving so slowly... once the plot diverges from the play/movie things should pick up, but there's some ground to cover before then :-/

I'll try to make it up to you guys with lots of introspective angst and fluffy morsels, mkay? Oh, and don't forget to leave a review! Thanks to everyone who's done so thusfar; you have no idea how much it means to me. You guys are the reason I'm up writing right now instead of working on my history paper... don't worry, that's a good thing )


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